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Locals win at most-attended Minnesota State Fair ever

Shoreview resident Yudong Shen won the People’s Choice Award in the Fine Arts Exhibition at this year’s Minnesota State Fair with the Chinese ink painting “Dawn Over Boundary Waters.”
courtesy of Minnesota State Fair

If Falcon Heights felt especially crowded the past couple of weeks, the intuition was correct: this year’s Minnesota State Fair packed the city with more fairgoers than ever.

According to a Sept. 5 press release from the fair, some 1,997,320 people attended the Great Minnesota Get-Together this year, setting a new all-time record.

The fair’s been record-setting as of late — 2016 recorded the most people ever up until then — but this year’s tally surpassed that previous mark by more than 50,000 people.

The 2017 fair also set a handful of individual daily records — nearly 243,000 descended upon the fairgrounds on Sunday, Sept. 3.

A couple locals — all Shoreview residents — also had a big year at the fair.

Shoreview artist Yudong Shen took the People’s Choice Award at the fair’s Fine Arts Exhibition juried art show with the Chinese ink painting on rice paper called “Dawn Over Boundary Waters.”

A couple young people from Shoreview also did well in the 45th Annual MSF Amateur Talent Contest Finals held Sept. 3 in the Grandstand.

Clara Schubilske took third place in the teen division with her violin performance of “Chinese Tambourine,” and Aurora Wang took first place in the preteen division with her piano performance of “Piano Sonata No. 2 — Prokofiev.”

For those already marking their calendars for next year’s state fair, it runs Aug. 23 to Sept. 3, 2018.